Toni Morrison's Sul Characterization And The Politics Of Male Nomenclature

Her mother and grandmother, who obviously favor her brother, essentially ignore Sula. Hannah, her mother, is a very sexual woman who enjoys the company of many men in town to the disapproval of Sula. Because of her mother’s actions, Sula views her with an indifferent and callous sense of hostility. Still, Sula reacts in a negative way when hears her mother say, “‘I just don’t like her’” in reference to her daughter. (57) The difference between loving someone and liking someone is made clear here. It develops the idea of a mother’s ambivalent love. When a child is aggravating, it can be frustrating to love them. But for Hannah, she simply does not like the person Sula is becoming. This realization, for Sula, removes her from

It becomes more evident that the relationship between the two is turning form one that is symbiotic to one that is parasitic when Sula returns

For Sula, there is no "other" against which she can then define herself. Having rejected her community and her family, she wanders, trying somehow to define who she is. Sula turns to Shadrack, the local madman, at first because she worries that he saw what happened to Chicken Little, but then because his words truly do comfort her.

The climax of the story is when Nel finally confronts Sula. Each girl carried demons, guilt, and frustration over their lives and their choices. Nel finally vents her anger and pain and asks for an explanation from Sula. Nel's " thighs were truly empty and dead too, and it was Sula who had taken the life from them" (Morrison pg. 110-111). After leaving Eva at the home, Nel is so upset that she heads to Sula's grave. She sadly thinks about how none of the townspeople mourned her death. Nel calls out for Sula and it is then she finally forgives her for cheating with Jude. She starts crying, for the first time in years. Nel finally finds peace by grieving for Sula. When reading that part I think it was then that she realized it was Sula who she was missing & not Jude. When reading the story I couldn’t help but feel mixed emotions for Sula. It was a combination of sadness for all

Unlike all the other women in the story, Sula is tough and does not let others interfere with her. She lives her life by her own rules and standards. The people in the town notice that "except for a funny-shaped finger and that evil birthmark, she was free of any normal signs of vulnerability" (115). Again, the rose symbolized Sula's growth and carefree way of life.

Both, however have significance in how they influenced Sula. Both Eva and Hannah do not have conventional motherly attachment to Sula, let alone the other people who come and go to the house. Arguably, there is also little emotional attachment to each other and their other family members, despite the sacrifices made by Eva. This teaches Sula that emotional attachment is not something to be desired how little emotional attachment is to another human being. The only consistent attachments her mother and grandmother have are through blood, and that is riddled with pain and loss.

The novel Sula, is a work which contrasts the lives of its two main characters Nel and Sula. They appear, on the surface, to be the epidemy of binary opposites but this is in actuality their underlying bond. The differences in their personalities complement one another in a way that forges an almost unbreakable alliance. Sula is compulsive and uncontrollable while her counterpart, Nel, is sensible and principled. To prove Nel human by subscribing to the theory that a human is one who possess both good and bad traits, one must only look at how she interacts with Sula, here both negative and positive traits are evident.Nel’s "good" traits obviously come to the forefront when looking at her character. One might say this is a result

Because of the sexual confidence Hannah Peace has, Sula must disguise her difference, just like her grandmother Eva had too. Eva’s drastic measures were repeated by Sula an act of survival and denial of powerlessness and vulnerability. Nel and Sula are regularly picked on by the same group of boys, causing Sula to take matter into her own hands. At one point, Sula takes out a knife and cuts off part of her finger saying, “ ‘If I can do that to myself, what you suppose I’ll do to you?’ ” (54-55). This severe act if Sula’s moment of self-recognition of her connection to her grandmother Eva. Here, Sula realizes that she has to fight against her own vulnerability, and establish her identity, hereby following her grandmother Eva’s example. Though this moment shows Sula’s inner strength, it can never disguise her enough of being different from the rest of her community. Just as Eva and Hannah, Sula continues the unpreventable, mature line of breaking past the typical gender roles of the time. Eva’s overly independent attitude and removal from caring and mothering a daughter correctly, leaves her daughters with unlearned, societal caretaking skills. This results in Sula’s highly inappropriate and unnecessary act of clumsy caretaking within her relationship with Nel. Yet, it is understandable because Sula has never been taught normal and conventional means for problem solving. The denial of motherly love from

Jude Greene, Nel’s husband, is initially introduced as a character fueled solely by his desire to achieve a state of masculinity. He works as a waiter, but yearns to be chosen by the white men to work on the new bridge that will be constructed, and longs to be able to be able to say that he, “...built that road.” (82). Jude longed for the validation that building the road would have given him, and felt similarly towards marrying Nel. When the white men refused to hire him to help with the impending construction, he was enraged and that rage, “...and a determination to take on a man’s role anyhow that made him press Nel about settling.” (82). Jude is so anxious to take on the role of a true man that he pushes for a more grueling job, and subsequently marriage just so he can assume responsibility. Ajax, like Jude, also seeks to achieve a level of masculinity but does so in a vastly different way. Ajax states that the only thing he loves is his mother and airplanes, but the rest of his life is filled with the, “...idle pursuits of bachelors without work in small towns.” (126-127). Ajax, though effortlessly kind to women, is shown displaying a decent

There were many things that contributed to the fact that Sula was evil such as that she let Chicken Little drown, she watched her mother burn, slept with Nel’s husband, and put her own grandmother into a nursing home. Sula lets Chicken Little die and she never even tried to save him. Also, she never told anyone about Chicken Little’s death. She just left him there to rot in the sun without a proper burial.

While society's view of evil is really based on the disapproval of anything that would break down way society works, Sula's view of evil is based on a different goal and she acts according to a different set of standards. In other words, "Sula was distinctly different" (118). Sula "had been looking all along for a friend" (122) and that is the goal she is really trying to reach. In sleeping with many men, she is sort of looking for a release for her "misery and...deep sorrow" (122). She is trying to find a friend who she can

The town unites social as they band together against Sula and her radical actions /"evil ways."

Sula as the main character in which the book is named, would be expected to have quite the character development as the story progresses, but this is not how the story progresses. Sula, as a child, receives little attention from her mother and grandmother (Reddy). This forces her to learn how to care for herself as well as become independent at young age, thus her childhood being cut short. Sula’s mother, Hannah, has a well know reputation for sleeping with all of the men of the Bottom (Reddy). Although Sula disapproves of her mother’s tendencies, her mother’s actions make their mark on Sula’s personality which we see later in the book.

People choose names for a reason, whether it is so that the child takes on a certain personality, based on who they are named after, or so that he or she may carry on the name of a beloved family member. Many names that are popular today are names from the Bible, since most of the biblical characters possess characteristics that parents would want their child to have. Names like Noah, Jacob, David, and Miriam, are names currently in the top 1000 child names in the world, and they are all biblical names. Names from the Bible are also found in many works of literature, like Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon, a coming of age story about a young man during the mid twentieth century. The reader is introduced to multiple characters with biblical

The meaning of names is a central focus of the novel, because names define people. Their worth and functions are summarized by the names. To some extent, the names also discourage originality. This occurs especially to